Monday, September 28, 2015

Week 57 - Being a missionary is the best!

Good news! Jesus, our investigator who lives two hours away in Columbia, is getting married on the 9th of October!! Elder Solis and I get to go and it will be so great! Just a quick recap, him and Martina not being married was the big problem with him getting baptized so it should be happening soon enough! Woohoo!! :)

A cool quote someone mentioned during our District Meeting this week was "if you fail to plan, then you're planing to fail". Not sure who said that quote first, but apparently Robert D. Hales also said it at one point and it's pretty true. As a mission ever since Elder C. Scott Grow came last week we've all be trying to be better planners because it really does make a HUGE difference.

This week we also had an exchange with the Zone leaders, who actually live right across the street from us in! Elder Ferrell was the Elder I was with for the day, and we had a great time together. He is a great example and really enjoys working hard but makes it fun too :) During our exchange interview he told me that I had a huge strength for teaching and that I was one of the best teachers he had observed on his mission (he goes home in three weeks lol) so that was definitely nice of him to say. I don't feel like that great of a teacher but maybe I'm better than I give myself credit for. I'm still trying to improve though!!

We had some great lessons throughout the week, but the highlight was probably Sunday. I few months ago Elder Lazaro and I taught this couple named Luz and Angel. Angel grew up in the church but Luz is not a member! I don't remember if I ever mentioned this but how we found them originally was knocking doors in this trailer park in Chesterfield, which is about 20 minutes from our apartment. Long story short, they used to live about 40 minutes from there with our branch president and his family until they moved! Their records are still on the roster and Luz had been taught in the past as well-- we just didn't have an address! But we happened to knock on their door randomly one day. What are the odds!

Anyway, Elder Solis and I hadn't been able to see them until this last week because of mile limitations and also they just seemed busy. But I felt prompted to see them again and they are very ready to come back to church and make changes! We are even going to start teaching their 13 and 8 year old kids. Miracles happen! :)

Things are great here! The church is true! Being a missionary is the best! Love you all :)

Love, Elder Hayes

Photo 1: one of my average meals lol

Photo 2: me with a statue of chuck berry. i guess he's a famous guitar player or something. the street i'm on is called the delmar loop and it's apparently one of the most well-known streets in the US! It's full of cool stuff.

Photo 3: the delmar loop planet walk is this pretty much these signs placed along the sidewalk that represent the planets and are spaced apart from each other in proportion to the distance between them in real life (i hope that makes sense) it's awesome!